Contact Improv
by GoGirl212
Summary: The Eagle soars as he leads his team through a deadly dance of life and death.


**Contact Improv**

_Author's Note: Dedicated to the Birdies and Villains of Gatchamania who are wholly responsible for me getting the idea into my head that I should be writing fanfics. Special thanks and gratitude to Summer39 for all of her encouragement and beta-reading. None of the characters belong to me, but I am eternally grateful to Tatsunoko for dreaming them up.  
_

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_"Contact Improvisation or CI started in the US as a means to explore the physical forces imposed on the body by gravity, by the physics of momentum, falling and lifting. CI is a complex but very open form with infinite possibilities and is a dance form that is made by the dancer in the moment of dancing." - Touchdown Dance (2002)_

_"When we put our bodymass in motion, we raise above the law of gravity and go towards the swinging, circulating attraction of the centrifugal force. Dancers ride upon, and play with these forces." - Steve Paxton (1987) – "creator"of the contact improv form_

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The echoes of Katse's shrill laughter faded into stillness as Ken stood poised for battle on the metal deck, the hum of the mecha's vast engines thrumming rhythmically against the soles of his feet. He sensed rather then saw his two teammates arrayed behind him, backs to the center of the vast room, together forming a sharp triangle that promised destruction and death at each apex. The usual overture of taunts, threats and insults was complete and Ken waited in the silence for the real performance to begin.

He took a deep breath to center himself, as he was trained to do, and knew behind him that the other two did the same. With his breath, one short second protracted itself to a long moment and time stretched. He focused and centered his awareness into his body, letting his ninja training settle his mind and extend his senses. Another breath, and in its elongated time, Ken decided which six would fall from his first weapon strike, chose to hold ground to meet the first onslaught with a hook kick rather then start with a running kick, and planned which direction to spin out from his kick to best catch his returning blade. He noticed his heightened hearing as a soft fluff of fabric flapped to his left, the motion of Joe clearing his wings from the holster of his gun. His nose caught the slightest scent of jasmine under the smell of sweat and fear emanating from the green-clad battalion ringing them on the floor and balconies and knew that Jun, to his right, was also choosing her first phrase in their deadly improvisational dance. A tiny smile tugged at his mouth, for Jun would almost certainly go for a sweeping or flying kick while Joe would rush to meet the soldiers in a flurry of fists and shuriken.

The third breath began with the collective howl of a hundred men rushing forward to rip the three teenagers limb from limb and ended with the battle cries of three hardened warriors rising to their challenge, releasing blade, yo-yo and gun into the stampeding mass of bloodthirsty soldiers. Ken watched only the first three opponents fall from his flying blade as his foot made contact with the face of the nearest soldier. He spun out of the kick to his left, raising his hand to catch his returning birdrang. He noticed Jun straightening from a reverse roundhouse and similarly snapping her yo-yo back into her hand. He could not see Joe, but could hear his grunts and the crack of hand to bone as he dealt punishing blows to any enemy foolish enough to encircle him.

Choosing to continue to attack with his feet, Ken shifted effortlessly in a circular pattern that kept him localized in the same area of the room and kept their fierce triangle connected. He could see the others only in momentary flashes, but it didn't matter as his sense of them grew stronger. Their kinesthetic connection took over in battle and they responded to each other's movement and motion with coordinated rhythm and physical awareness. As dancers do, they breathed as one even in their own spaces, their sense of time and timing unifying them even as they battled individually throughout the vast room.

For Ken, time remained elongated. Just as someone might feel that time slowed down at the moment of a car accident, Ken registered minute details around him unfolding in exquisite clarity. His natural physical prowess combined with his advanced training gave him speed and agility far beyond the normal human range, but it also gave him the ability to focus so intently that time itself seemed to flow from him at a different pace than the physical world. He knew his teammates experienced this as well, it was part of what made the five of them a nearly unbeatable fighting force.

Two goons flew past him, blood showering from broken noses where the heel of Jun's boot had connected with their faces. He heard her shout close to him, rotated his last kick into a cartwheel and shifted toward her position. He righted himself in time to watch her flow beside him in a flying kick, connecting yet again to the face of another soldier. He extended his right arm to her and she caught it easily, effortlessly using her momentum to swing on the pivot of Ken's arm and continue her flight, cutting down a swath of soldiers arrayed around them, feet dealing blows like swords to the necks and heads of their opponents. Ken caught Jun's eye for the space of a breath and found there focused calm and deadly beauty. In this heightened state, there was no room for subterfuge and Ken knew she could see his heart and soul as clearly as he could see hers. The connection between them was deep and strong, born of trust, love, loss and pain shared together and it felt as if it had been there for eternity. In the midst of heated battle, Ken nonetheless felt a piercing joy sing through him and he couldn't help but smile. Another timeless breath passed and then as one they dropped hands, Jun spinning back to the floor, having exchanged places with him in the room, but still maintaining the triangle they had begun. His mental discipline overcame his emotional distraction and he re-engaged the enemy with vital intensity.

Ken's movement phrases were born of inspiration and improvisation**. **Countless hours of training and practice combined with the hard experience of years of battle allowed Ken to control his body the way a master musician might wring flawless music from a simple instrument made of wood and steel. He wasn't thinking about killing or hatred, he thought of movement and flow. Ken found joy and release in the fluidity of his own motions and the resolute command he had over his own body. He could use force, momentum, gravity and friction as tools to sculpt the perfect response to the physical forces playing around him. A ninja was trained to keep a calm, clear mind yet the enjoyment of his own movement patterns brought a euphoria to him just the same. In battle, Ken could truly express himself, uninhibited and unfettered. Through his own physical action, Ken simply felt free. His entire being was consumed in the delicate dance of life and death and he knew that this was where he belonged, where he truly became alive.

Bodies littered the floor and maneuvering over the obstacles on the ground became another facet of the dance. Ken took to the air to gain higher ground, almost running across the heads of the enemy soldiers like they were stepping stones across a stream. But on his last step, he faltered, the soldier he had intended for his next foothold had skidded in a pool of his comrades' blood and both he and Ken went to the ground. Ken used feet and hands to swiftly ward off blows, but could not gain purchase against the slippery floor to stand. His keen mind assessed the danger of the situation – he was in a defensive mode now and in a position he could not easily maintain as more goons joined the fray and attempted to take out the fallen Eagle. Suddenly, one of his opponents was pulled from his view and bodies began flying from him as if a giant hand had reached in to snap them out of the air.

Joe stood above him, fist cracking the jaw of one attacker while his leg shot out to catch another one in the gut. "You just gonna lie there all day?" he grunted out to Ken as he ducked a soldier's running kick and let him sail over him into the midsection of another. Ken grasped Joe's outstretched hand and let Joe pull him to his feet. Arms clasped they used each other's bodies as anchor points, counterbalancing to achieve complex fighting forms not possible without a partner. Holding on to Joe was like hanging on to the tail of a cyclone. Where Ken was liquid and flow, Joe was staccato rhythms and unrestrained power. Yet each could respond to the other's impulses, knowing when to duck or lean, or stretch and extend. They knew each other so well that they could interpret the shifts of weight and intuit where and how to move, a perfect complement to the other's actions. Fighting alongside Joe, Ken felt a different surge of emotion then his connection with Jun. Joe felt like an immovable object imbedded in his soul. Sometimes frustrating, sometimes infuriating, Joe's loyalty was ultimately unwavering and Ken felt a kinship with him that ran deeper than any of the others.

The soldiers around them began to hesitate – they found this duo to be the most fearsome of the five. Joe's feral smile and unbridled brutality was terrifying. The boys released their hold on each other, each snapping back to their own rhythms to resume the battle alone. Joe tossed Ken a quick, deadly smile and moved toward his right giving Ken more maneuvering room.

Nearly half of the soldiers were down now as the fierce triangle continued to rotate, creating three vortexes of pain and death that took out whatever was in their wake. Solos merged to duets and trios – Jun and Joe working together to disarm a soldier with a laser rifle, or Ken and Joe both catching Jun from out of a flying somersault and using her momentum to toss her forward in a more forceful attack. The screams of the dying and the roaring rage of those still alive to fight were loud in Ken's ears, but not so loud as to drown out the sound of dozens of rifles clicking into position above him. He raised his eyes to the balconies and saw the soldiers taking aim.

Ken gathered his power in his legs and pushed up, white wings unfurling from his shoulders and outstretched arms reaching for the rail of the first balcony. He grabbed the support and swung forward, snapping into the midsection of one of the gunmen and sending him sprawling into four more. From the corner of his eye he saw something white shoot past him and knew Jun had taken flight as well. The acrid smell of burning flesh rose from behind him, and he turned to discover Jun had electrified a gunman crouching there on her way past. As he flung himself past the smoking body and rammed full force into the next assailant, Ken felt himself smile – Jun had a way of knowing just where to be to quietly save his life at least once each and every battle.

The rhythm of the dance changed now as Joe also took to the air. They cartwheeled back and forth through space, confusing their enemies and avoiding their bullets. They flung themselves from railing to support beam, twisting to kick and strike at the soldiers in the balconies, yet easily avoiding collisions with each other. Their kinesthetic senses flowed, letting Jun know when to shift left in the air to make room for Joe coming past her right side, or telling Joe to duck so Ken could fly over his head to attack someone behind him. Their patterns became more intricate, more involved. If on the ground they were independent creatures working to one purpose, in the air they were three aspects of the same force. Instead of a slowed down awareness of time and space, Ken instead felt hyper-aware. Jun and Joe flowed with and around him like the neutrons and protons orbiting an atom. Their power was in their unity and shared energy, and time raced by as Ken calculated the ever-changing multiple variables of three bodies in constant motion, and figured out just where to be when in order to continue forcing the patterns forward.

Ken reached for Jun mid air and used his greater arm strength to toss her to the next balcony level. Joe and Ken remained at the center levels, where the majority of the shooters tried to take aim against them while attempting to avoid hitting their comrades regrouping on the floor below. The aerial battle took on a timeless quality, existing only in the now as they dived, floated, soared and wheeled back and forth and up and down in the circle of the iron balconies. Ken only became aware of the passing of time as his muscles finally started to register their fatigue. Working in the air was more taxing than on the ground, and Ken started to notice the burn in his shoulders and arms as he worked with Jun and his hip twinged as he pushed off from one railing to propel himself across the atrium.

He paused on top of a balcony rail to send his birdrang ringing around the enemy and looked down to a new commotion below. A wide path was cut through the soldiers massed on the floor, bodies heaped in piles like a jumble of rag dolls – it seemed that Ryu and Jinpei had finally made it back from the bowels of the mecha to join the fray. Ken reassessed the situation – if they had returned, then it meant the team only had minutes until the charges the pair had set in the engine room would blow. It was time to finish this.

He looked across at Joe and nodded toward the floor and Joe answered with a thumbs up. As one, they both looked above them toward Jun. She had wrapped her hands around an upright support pole at the highest balcony level and was spinning around it, kicking one soldier in the head and then continuing the circle to gather momentum to launch herself back to the other side of the room. She arched her back and spread her arms, the grace of the Swan she was named for apparent in her elegant elongated form. Jun in flight was as beautiful as she was deadly. She tucked in her legs to somersault in the air and then stretched forward again, hands reaching toward the support on the opposite side of the atrium. Just before she could grab the rail, a bright yellow burst of some kind of energy wave crackled to life above her and caught her completely in its beam.

Ken sucked in a sharp breath and time stopped.

Jun was frozen in space, her eyes wide with shock and pain, her supple limbs stiffened and strained into a rigid and forced articulation completely counter to her natural bearing. Ken's heart pounded hard against his ribcage and vibrated to fill his ears.

One.

Two.

Three.

Time jerked forward and she was falling, head over heels and out of control, rocketing past him and toward the frenzied mob on the floor.

"Jun!" Ken's ragged shriek echoed throughout the tall chamber, reinforced by a nearly primal shout of anguish from Joe as they launched themselves into the air, diving after her but knowing already it was too late. The seconds stretched unbearably and Ken watched helplessly as she careened toward the floor. Their howls had not yet died from their lips when a blur of brown and green rose up from below to grab Jun not ten feet from the bottom. Surrounded by Ryu's strong arms, they fell together into the sea of green soldiers.

Ken had little time to think as he instinctively altered his trajectory and angle to land in a crouch, only feet away from the big man and the Swan crumpled in a heap on the floor. He felt Joe land just to his left, creating a defensive front and saw Jinpei skitter behind him, working his way under the press of green clad soldiers to get to his fallen teammates. Ken stood and death was framed in his crystal blue eyes. The serene mind of the ninja was replaced by the base need to protect the people he loved, and seek vengeance on those who had hurt them. Ken didn't know if Jun was dead or alive, if Ryu had been injured in saving her, or if they had been overcome by the enemy troops that surrounded them now. He only knew fury and pain. There was no team now, no sense of connection and rhythm, there was only himself and the brutal retribution he was about to visit on the bodies of his enemies.

Ken was a blur of white wings, fists crashing into the faces of the soldiers and his booted heel smashing bone to break ribs and jaws. He moved through space in his own bubble of time and motion, creating a solitary dance to satisfy the needs of his own body. His hands and feet became extensions of his thoughts. He saw a face and willed it death and his open palm shot out and made it so. The frenzy of his first attacks settled into a focused, white hot intensity aimed at systematic destruction of all in his wake. Time was replaced by only now. _Now I am tearing off your ear. Now I am slicing your throat. Now I am crushing your windpipe beneath my foot._ Ken ceased to think, ceased to feel, and ceased to care. He channeled death in this dance and the foes around him fell.

Abandoned by time, he did not know how long he spent laying waste to the enemies surrounding him, but he became aware of a presence at his back, a mirror of darkness to his blinding white. He again felt this more than saw it, but thought returned and he knew the force as Joe. With one thought, came many – the bloody bodies piled at his feet, the crackle of the energy beam trying to seek them out on the floor, and the steady thrum of the engines again. Engines that were rigged to explode at any moment. Time crashed into him hard and he shifted into fast forward.

Keeping Joe to his back, he looked for the rest of his team. Jinpei swirled above, bolos cracking heads and garroting necks. Ryu was below Jinpei, lifting a flailing soldier above his head to send him crashing into his fellows grouped before him. And there, at Ryu's back, was a flash of white wings and the sound of a sharp snap as a soldier fell back with a broken neck. Ken had no time to be grateful as he thought ahead to plan their escape.

"We need to get out of here – now!" he shouted over the din to the rest of his team. "Science Ninja Team – formation tornado fighter!" he called out. At his command, he sensed immediate physical response in the actions of his team. Ryu pushed his way to Joe, closer to the center of the room, to create the strong base. At the same time he and Jun shot up above the battle, reaching with arms and wings to propel themselves into position on Ryu's and Joe's shoulders. Ken landed an instant before Jun did and reached out his arm quickly in case she needed him to steady her. But she landed deftly and surely, although a glance at her face showed her pale and strain pulled at the corners of her large, luminous eyes. Simultaneously, Jinpei lit upon their shoulders and instinct bred through training kicked in again.

As a collective, they centered their breath and without any command began the motion that would cause a whirlwind of spiraling destruction to shoot through the heart of the dying mecha. Ken felt the first explosions of the engines rock Ryu below his feet, but he compensated easily, each of them making minute physical adjustments to respond to the kinesthetic energy of the person above, below or to their side. Ken and Jun had the most elements to manage, but Jinpei had to handle the most force as all of it was channeled up through him. Ryu and Joe generated the energy and stability, Ken and Jun sharpened it and Jimpei drove it home like the head of a spear. As they gained momentum and energy, the speed and force became deadly. Any small misjudgment or weakness could ripple through the formation and cause it to shatter. They could not speak in the vortex they created, they had to feel each other. They had to sense the physical and respond in kind by riding the energies and channeling their power.

Time shifted, and this time Ken could see the future, could see them riding the deadly currents up through the chamber and sweeping soldiers to their death, buffeted by winds the force of any earthbound tornado. They would shatter the dome at the top and break free of the disintegrating mecha. Each would split off of in a different direction arching backs to spread their wings and catch the rising air currents. Then, controlled and aware they would stretch and turn to face each other and begin a gentle fall toward earth.

Released from death and blood, gloved hands reach to each side and they form a circle. Joe's hand is firm and strong clasped in Ken's right hand while Jun's hand is small and warm in his left. Their arms and hands lock in a perfect ring and the anger, the bloodlust, the battle weariness fade from their bodies as they drift in perfect harmony through the soft clouds. In a moment of sheer joy Jinpei screams his delight in the rushing wind and spontaneously his call is taking up by his brothers and sister. Alone in the clouds, screaming madly, five become one.

Present crashes into the future and Ken finds himself crouching on the ground, unaware of the exact moment they had all unclasped their hands to make their own landfall. He is the first to his feet, and watches as the rest of the team stand. Jinpei getting up last after taking a hard tumble on his landing. Jun is steady, but still looks pale to him. He catches her eye, but this time the windows behind her bright emerald spheres are closed to him. He has no idea what she is thinking now, but he lets nothing flow from himself either. She smiles at him and dips her head, something he takes as part apology and part acknowledgment of her being all right. Ken feels choked, not sure how he should respond to her or even how he wants to respond. Folding his wings around his body he simply turns away to walk silently back to the Phoenix, his team following behind him. Jinpei taunts Ryu about something funny he did while setting the explosive charges and Joe asks Jun if she is injured. Ken hears her answer that she is fine, then catches her silvery laugh as she brushes off Joe's offer of assistance back to the warship. Ken's entire being feels heavier, bound tightly to the earth. The clarity that he owned in battle replaced by uncertainty, longing, fear and worry. Time flows outside of his control as Ken feels the kinesthetic links with his team slip from his senses. Once again singular in thought and purpose, he feels lonely – the playful banter behind him creating a barrier he is unsure how to cross. He makes his way across the field alone, alone until the next time they dance.


End file.
